


both our stories combining in this life we've begun

by 4drinkamy



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Drabble Collection, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24028963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4drinkamy/pseuds/4drinkamy
Summary: collection of established relationship drabbles, ft. mr mac
Relationships: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago
Comments: 19
Kudos: 129





	1. we can have our cake and eat it too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 085: "It’s 2 am but you’re craving cake and we’re both up anyway so let’s bake in our underwear.”
> 
> title from bruce from matilda the musical bc obviously

Between morning sickness, exhaustion, heartburn and a myriad of other symptoms that she’s still getting used to, being pregnant isn’t easy at the best of times, but Amy’s fast learning that approaching the third trimester in the sticky heat of a New York summer is a whole new level of uncomfortable. With great effort, she turns on her side to glance at her alarm clock - 2:08am - and sighs. Only four slow minutes since she last looked at it. 

The new fan set up next to her side of the bed that Jake graciously came home with last week whirs relentlessly, taunting her that she’s yet to fall asleep, and she wonders if she should even bother continuing to toss and turn, knowing that she’s going to have to get up to pee again in the next hour anyway. A glance over her shoulder confirms that her husband with his butt in the air remains fast asleep next to her and, even though she feels kind of bad since she knows he’s exhausted after working a double shift, she’s so uncomfortable and envious of his ability to sleep wherever and whenever that she thinks  _ screw it _ \- she’s going to hold him to his word that he’d be there for her every minute of this pregnancy. 

“Babe? You awake?”

No response. 

“I can’t sleep, babe,” she moans. “It’s still too hot even with the fan on and I’m so sweaty and gross. And I think I’m craving cake but I’m not sure which kind...vanilla, red velvet, chocolate...I definitely want sprinkles. Do we have sprinkles?”

Void of an answer, Jake just buries his face further into his pillow, so she continues, “Ugh, why do we live in such a stuffy apartment? Do you think our AC is broken? Remind me to check it first thing tomorrow morning and maybe call the super. Why couldn’t I have gotten pregnant over winter? Okay, I definitely want chocolate-”

Jake’s bedside light turning on interrupts her. 

“You were listening the whole time? I actually successfully annoyed you into waking up?” Amy asks in slight disbelief as she watches him roll out of bed in his boxers and cross the room to her side. 

He offers his hand to help her get out of bed too.  "It’s 2 am but you’re craving cake, so let’s bake in our underwear,” he says simply with a tired, but endlessly loving, smile.

“Are you serious?”

“So serious. I think we have a box of chocolate mix in the cupboard so this is happening, my beautiful pregnant wife.”

Not an hour goes by where there’s not at least one pregnancy symptom annoying her in some way, and there’s a part of her that can’t wait to have her own body back, but then Jake will come along and compliment her and, until the next bout of heartburn conspires against her, she’ll actually feel the warmth of his words and the incomprehensible beauty of carrying their child. He’s somehow never not been able to make her blush. 

She follows him into the kitchen where he springs into action getting out a big bowl and preheating the oven and grabbing the cake mix from a top shelf just out of her reach. (“You’re so small, Santiago,” he grins at her and she immediately gets defensive. “Nuh, uh, this belly is just in the way!”)

Baking from a readymade cake mix turns into half an hour of bickering about the differences between types of oil and whether they’d rather be contestants on  _ Cake Wars  _ or  _ The Great British Bake Off, _ but eventually the cake is in the oven and Jake’s crowding her against the kitchen counter, the bump preventing them from getting as close as they usually would. He dabs at the sweat on her face with the kitchen towel and, the moment their eyes meet, they both burst out laughing, partly out of nearly-3am-deliriousness and partly because it’s still so surreal that the stars aligned and this is somehow their life.

“Hey, did you ever think when you first met me that one day you’d be wiping sweat off me in the middle of the night as we wait for a cake to bake nearly naked?”

“Not in a million years,” he chuckles and shakes his head, and  _ God _ his bed head curls are adorable. “This is like, beyond my wildest dreams.” He brings a hand to rest on her belly and she knows he’s not just talking about her ridiculous perspiration. Her heart flutters. 

“Thanks for getting up and keeping me company, babe. I’m sorry for being so annoying -”

He frowns, immediately pressing his finger to her lips to shush her, “Not annoying, never annoying. You’re carrying our baby in there, it’s the least I can do.”

“Our son,” she glows, and he leans in to kiss her gently.

“Besides,” he pulls away, smiling, “you know I’d hang out with you 24/sevs if I could; plus it's like practice for when he gets here. I want to keep you company for night feeds and all that too. We’re a team.”

After over five years of being together, every day she’s in awe that this man seems to find new ways to make her love him impossibly more. He’s so generous and selfless and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to fully express her gratitude for him. For now, with the scent of perhaps their second greatest creation in the oven, all she can manage is another kiss before murmuring breathlessly against his lips, “I love you more than chocolate cake.”

“Even more than sprinkles?”

She narrows her eyes at him teasingly, “Maybe not more than sprinkles. I’d kill for them right now.”

“What if I told you we have sprinkles because I bought some last week after you mentioned wanting them on ice cream?”

“Seriously?” she raises an eyebrow at him, even though she knows that he knows by now never to mess with her when it comes to her cravings, lest he want to deal with a hormone-induced breakdown on the kitchen floor. He turns to reach into one of their cupboards for them and shows them off to her in all their sugary glory like an excited puppy dog who's just fetched a tennis ball. 

“Okay,” she laughs at how proud he is of himself and goes to wrap her arms around his waist to hug him, because in his arms is always the most comfortable place on earth. “I definitely love you more than sprinkles.”


	2. in here the night is still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 090: “Our kid is totally the one who wanted to build a pillow fort, not me.”
> 
> title from too much for one heart by ms lea salonga

As she fumbles around for her keys, Amy is sure of two things. 1) She feels more exhausted than she has in months, which is well and truly saying something. (The bags under her eyes would surely test the limits of what concealer could cover up, but she’s yet to test out this theory owing to her suspicion that Jake’s once again stolen her concealer from her purse; after all these years, he remains incorrigible.) 2) If she doesn’t hold her baby within the next two minutes, she’s going to start crying. Both are uninvited symptoms of the fact that she’s just worked her first double shift since she came back from maternity leave a few months ago, one that was unplanned since apparently criminals and their arson attacks have no respect for her carefully scheduled roster. 

Hanging up her windbreaker and placing her keys in their designated tray, she sighs with relief as she finally enters their warm apartment. It’s a feeling that unfortunately lasts only seconds: when her eyes scan the living area as she toes off her boots, she’s met with the alarming sight of three dining chairs missing, one on its side on the floor, the couch stripped of all its cushions and blankets and, most worryingly, a very Mac-less baby playmat. Like the flip of a switch, suddenly her heart’s in her mouth, her anxiety already threatening to smother any rational thought. 

“Jake?” she calls out to no response, and she rushes down the hallway sure that she’s about to have to radio the 99 about her kidnapped family. When she reaches her bedroom, however, she’s stopped in her tracks by a scene that she really should have suspected now that she lives with, not one, but two Peraltas. The dining chairs are arranged in a semi-circle around the end of their bed, each covered by what looks like every blanket in the apartment to create a roof extending from the bed. From inside the fort, she can hear her husband humming Baby Shark. 

“Jake, what on earth-”

“Ames!” Jake’s head pops out of the wall of blankets, before immediately returning to the depths behind it. “Look, Mac, Mommy’s home,” he says excitedly, and the warmest grin floods Amy’s face when her little boy tries to climb over Jake’s lap to get to her as soon as he sees her (this month, they’re working on crawling). She’ll never get over the feeling of knowing that Mac misses her too.

“Usually this fort is Boys Only,” Jake continues as he smiles watching her cover Mac’s cheeks with kisses (a ‘Mac Attack’ as they’ve taken to calling such a phenomenon), “but we’ll make an exception for you. Are you impressed by Mr Mac’s architecture?”

Amy frowns remembering the near panic attack she had just minutes ago as she bundles her son in her arms so that she can maneuver them both into the fort. “I thought I’d come home to a crime scene.”

“Yeah, about the mess…” Jake bites his lip, only now realising the extent of it, “Mac was the one who wanted to build a pillow fort, not me!”

“He’s six months old, Jake,” she shakes her head with an amused smile, before returning her attention to their son who sits on her lap, currently fascinated by her tie. 

“Fine, I was scared he was somehow going to roll away and get hurt when I needed to pee so I surrounded him with pillows. And then it turned into this fort.”

“Naturally,” Amy says slightly sardonically, although she is genuinely impressed by its structural integrity and cosiness - Jake’s even brought in the fairy lights that normally occupy their bedroom window sills. 

“I can’t believe there was ever a time I complained about this bed having a thousand pillows” he muses, and her mind immediately casts back to the nights they used to stay up bickering about whose apartment they were going to move into, back when they were just beginning to build this beautiful, crazy life they have together. 

“So, how was work?” Jake breaks her out of reverie, “Did you miss us?”

“So, so much,” she reaches to press a kiss to his cheek, although before she can launch into a rant about having to spend a day with the Fire Department and deal with the incompetence of some of her beat cops, Mac starts fussing in Amy’s arms, never one to let the attention of his parents shift away from him for long. His little personality comes out more and more every day and he never fails to make them both laugh. 

“Hey baby, it’s okay, Mama’s here,” she bounces him gently to reassure him, already unbuttoning her shirt with one hand because it’s bedtime and she knows exactly what he wants. Ideally, she’d rather not feed him in her precious uniform but, then again, Mac has her absolutely wrapped around his tiny, stupid cute finger and she’s proven many times over willing to go into work with a milk stain or two. Jake helps peel her shirt off her so that she can pull down the straps to her vest tank and nursing bra and, when Mac latches after a few increasingly dramatic cries and then starts suckling contently, she finally feels like she can relax for the first time that day. 

“We gotta keep these cheeks nice and gushy,” Jake smiles, gently stroking Mac’s gorgeously chubby cheeks as he nurses. “I have dinner ready for us, too, by the way. I was waiting for you to come home.”

“Thanks, babe,” Amy leans against his shoulder, “I really appreciate it.”

“Then, after we put this little one down, I was thinking that you and I could have some alone time…”

“Jake, I’m so tired - wait, you mean making me watch Die Hard with you in this pillow fort you’ve made, don’t you?” Even running on four hours’ sleep, it’s an easy solve when you’ve been together with Jake Peralta for well over five years. She still pretends to be reluctant, but really she doesn’t mind watching Die Hard these days, not least because of her son’s namesake, but also because it means that she gets to snuggle and fall asleep in her husband’s arms after consuming an entire bowl of popcorn. Small and simple pleasures. 

“Duh! Although if your mind is in the gutter, and I know it always is, Santiago,” he teases, immediately prompting a roll of her eyes, “you know my services are avail whenever.”

“You’re such a dork,” she laughs. 

“A dork you married and made a baby with,” he counters, rubbing his hand over her thigh affectionately. 

“Yeah,” she sighs, letting Mac’s little hand hold her finger as he looks up at her with his big brown eyes that are completely Jake’s, “I did.”

Later, when Jake goes to heat their lasagna up, Amy’s left with the sweetness of a milk-drunk Mac falling asleep in her arms in the cocoon of the pillow fort. She’s exhausted, and she wishes that people wouldn’t set fire to buildings in their spare time and that Jake would quit taking the concealer out of her purse, but as she wipes Mac’s mouth gently with her finger, she takes a quiet moment to reflect on how she’s living her dream life. She never imagined that pillow forts and Die Hard would feature quite so prominently in this dream life, but she can hear her husband still singing Baby Shark in the kitchen, and she has her perfect baby in her arms, and everything feels right.


	3. little snip of a little man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: mac’s process of becoming a big bro- him knowing that there’s a bebe in mama’s belly, finding out it’s a sister and meeting baby maya for the first time🥺👉🏻👈🏻 please?
> 
> or: mac gets a new bed and learns about being a big brother

As it turns out, when there’s a two year old running between your legs all day wanting to play turtles and cuddle in pillow forts, pregnancies go by a lot faster. It’s how Jake finds himself, with a mere month to go until their new baby arrives, spending an entire afternoon panic-building a new crib and turning Mac’s existing crib into a toddler bed, fuelled in equal parts by the determination to prove he’s a good father- _of-two_ and a few encouraging sloppy kisses from his son. Amy’s always telling him that he doesn’t need to prove anything - and deep down Jake knows she’s always right - but that doesn’t change the fact that his son and daughter (daughter!) deserve the world from him.

He pockets a spare screw lying on the floor that probably, hopefully isn’t necessary as he hears a freshly-bathed and TMNT-pajamas-clad Mac near the nursery with Amy for bedtime.

“Mac, we have a surprise for you,” Amy’s tone is soft, kind of like when she babies him when he’s sick or is coaxing him to get up in the mornings, and hearing it instantly makes him feel warm inside. “Daddy’s been building a new bed just for you!”

“Do you like it?” Jake beams at his son, watching his little face scrunch up as he takes in the foreign pieces of furniture in his nursery. Until they find a bigger place, hopefully in the suburbs with a large garden for the kids to play in, the kids are going to have to share a room, a fact that Amy isn’t too worried about having grown up with seven brothers in a five bedroom house.

“Oh no, it’s broken, Mommy!” Mac exclaims, pointing to his bed and looking to Amy in concern.

“It’s not broken, baby,” she reassures him with a smile, taking his hand. “Look, there’s no sides to it because you’re a big boy now and we trust you to stay in it all night and have sweet dreams.”

“What’dy’a think Macadoodle, are you ready for your first night in your big boy bed?” Jake asks as Mac tests the bed out for himself, methodically lining up all of his soft toys so they’re positioned in their rightful places.

“Book, please!” Mac squeals in lieu of a real answer, although Jake smiles at his wife taking his excitement as a hearty yes.

“Good manners, Mac,” Amy praises, lying beside him on the bed because at 35 weeks her lower back is seemingly perpetually hurting and any chance to not be on her feet is gladly welcomed, even if it means squeezing into a child-size bed. “How about Daddy reads us the story of Billy Bear getting a new baby, huh?”

“Okay, Mommy,” Mac grins, arms wrapping around her belly and snuggling into her side as best he can. Lately, they’ve been trying to read as many books as they can to Mac about being a big brother and welcoming a new tiny human into the family to get him used to the idea, but the way he’s been a lot more clingy to Amy recently, always asking for her cuddles, makes Jake think that his son instinctively knows that her attention is about to be divided. As they’re always praising him, he’s a smart little kid. (And Jake completely gets it - there’s no question that being cuddled by Amy is one of life’s greatest pleasures and there’s nowhere on earth safer than in her arms; he’ll have to get used to sharing her more too.)

Settling on to the floor beside Mac’s new bed - unfortunately between third trimester baby bumps and toddlers and a million stuffed animals, there’s not enough room for an adult man - Jake enthusiastically reads aloud, with all the best voices of course, all the things that big brothers can expect to do with their little sisters. Every time they read one of these books, Jake internally counts his blessings that they are able to give Mac a sibling, something they’ve both always wanted for him.

“And best of all,” he finishes the book dramatically, “big brothers get lots and lots of love! That’s a good story, isn’t it, buddy?”

“I’m a big boy and big brother?” Mac murmurs into Amy’s side, his eyebrows furrowed in the exact same way as hers when she’s struggling with a crossword clue.

“Yeah, that’s right, Mac,” she kisses the top of his head, running one hand through his curls. “Although you’re also always going to be Mommy and Daddy’s baby, okay?”

“Okay…” Mac says slowly, processing that apparent contradiction as only a toddler can: in the cutest way possible.

“We love you so much, Mister,” Jake adds with a warm smile, even though there aren’t enough words to truly articulate such a statement. “And baby sister loves you so much too.”

“When is my baby coming, Mommy?”

“Well, she has to grow and get stronger just a little bit more in my tummy,” Amy explains, knowing full well that a two- and-a-half year old has little concept of concrete time frames. “But one night very soon you’re going to have a really fun sleepover with Nana and Grandpa and then, in the morning, baby sister will be here and you’ll get to give her lots of kisses.”

“Like Billy?”

“Yeah, exactly like Billy.”

“Can she play turtles with me?”

“She’s going to be a bit too little for that, bud,” Jake smiles; Mac really is his father’s son. “All she’s going to want to do is sleep and cry and drink milk from Mommy’s boobies. But I’ll still play turtles with you and when she’s big enough we can teach her how to play, yeah?”

Mac pokes Amy’s belly with his finger (he and Jake like to pretend Mommy’s ninja turtle shell is on backwards), before looking up hopefully, “Can you play turtles with me in the mornin’, Daddy?”

“Absolutely, Mr Mac,” Jake ruffles his curls. “But first, you have to go night-night, okay?”

Mac nods sleepily, holding his favourite toy lion close to him as Jake offers a hand to his wife to help her get up from the low bed.

“Do you need to go potty again, Mac?” Amy asks gently, because their little boy really is growing up so fast and becoming a whole independent kid before their very eyes.

“No thank you, Mama,” he replies with drooping eyes, not opening them once as his parents take turns kissing his soft cheeks and saying goodnight.

It’s only a mere four hours later, however, that the pitter-patter of tiny feet rushing down the hall can be heard - a sound they fear they’re going to have to get used to with Mac no longer confined to a crib. As he bursts into their room and climbs onto their bed claiming he wants to be a good big brother and sleep next to baby sissy in between Mommy and Daddy though, it’s cuteness far too sweet to resist. After all, Mac deserves the world and, as far as Jake’s concerned, the entire world exists within these four walls.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are always so appreciated and i believe feel like the equivalent of what it would b like to b kissed by jake....much to think about


End file.
